Tuesday 20 December 2011

Christmas traditions I found and loved!

I know we have loads of awesome traditions but thought these were cool:


When I became a Mom I decided that I wanted to create meaningful Christmas traditions for Peyton. My husband and I sat down and brainstormed ideas and he wasn’t really a lot of help (bless his heart). So instead I turned to my experiences, girlfriends and other resources. When I was waiting for Peyton to come home my girlfriend Brandi and I had a lot of free time on our hands. We spent countless hours on the phone talking and it is funny that planning our kids Christmas traditions is what helped get us through the adoption process. I think because we couldn’t control our process we looked to what we could control in the future and that was the traditions we would create.
So I have many traditions that I created. Not 1 was good enough
One that I wanted to share with you is the tradition with our Christmas books. I collected 25 Christmas books and I wrap them each year. Every night Peyton opens 1 of the books and we read it together before bed. Then the book is placed into a basket and it can be read as often as he wants throughout the holidays. We start our Tradition on November 30th and end on December 24th (with ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas). It is a tradition that he loves and looks forward too! On December 31st after he goes to bed the books are removed and placed away for safe keeping until the next year. This is what keeps them special. They are only out for the month of December. As he grows I have replaced some of the titles and will continue to do so but for the most part the investment is a one time investment. I picked most up after Christmas at 50-90% off or at consignment stores.
In addition, we purchase 1 Christmas ornament for Peyton every year that is something that he is “into”. We date the box or bottom of the ornament if it is not dated and when is ready to move (snif, snif) into his own home we will give those to him.
Two additional traditions that we do are that we make a Frugal Gingerbread House together as a family every year. It is so much fun and something we all look foward too! We also make Reindeer Food and put it out on Christmas Eve.

2 comments:

Triniti the Luddite said...

WE did this this year. The kids have loved it and we have as well. It is definitely some thing we will be doing every year from now on. A perfect countdown to Christmas.

Calli Strawberry Jam said...

Ha, I totally thought Trin had written this post! Will be scoping out the Christmas book sales and op shops cause I love this idea, a great advent calendar!